Every Shadow Comes From Light
by Ceanncait
Summary: What if Sir Guy didn't die in the tunnels under Nottingham Castle? **COMPLETE** There will be a sequel.
1. Chapter 1

His fingers twitched; a tiny dance of life on the dusty floor. He listened. All was quiet for the moment. What was the saying? Silent as the grave?

"Not my grave," Sir Guy of Gisborne thought grimly. "They shall not have that satisfaction." He had not lied when he whispered his 'dying' speech, he would die and soon. He snorted softly remembering the overwrought nobility of his final words. He had known that honorable idiot Robin would insist on wasting precious time dragging him from the tunnel. His lie had ensured that Robin and Archer would at least have a chance to free themselves and perhaps turn the tide of the battle raging above his head. He was free, indeed, and proud; of his acting skills if nothing else. The saints knew there was precious little else to be proud of.

"And free to seek the location of my own death, at least, if not the manner," he thought, trying to drag himself to a sitting position and failing. He would be damned if he would allow himself to die here beneath Nottingham Castle, as much his prison over the last years as any dungeon cell. If death was inevitable, and judging from the searing pain of his wounds it must be, at least let it be beneath the sky. "Let me at least look upon heaven, though I will never reach it."

Inch by agonizing inch, he rolled onto his side, then to his belly. And began to crawl…

###

The Widow Afton Cooper pulled the latchstring and walked into her tiny cottage, inhaling deeply of the herb-scented air. Setting her basket aside on the trestle table, she took up the poker and stirred the dormant fire to life, adding a short log to feed the warming flames. The early autumn morning was cool, though her weather sense told her the day would be fair and hot once the sun rose fully. She cast a longing glance at her bed, tidily made in the corner. "The night was long. Perhaps I should lie down, just for a moment," she said to herself, taking a step towards it.

Her good-sister's lying-in had been a hard one; as hard a birth as could be endured and leave mother and child alive at the end. Footling breech and a mother whose body was all too slight to birth such a lusty boy child. In the small, dark hours before dawn, when the mother's cries were reduced to pitiful moans and the village biddies had begun clucking about other births gone horribly wrong, even Afton's natural confidence had begun to wane. But when dawn broke, alive they both were, and would remain so under Afton's watchful eye. She would visit later and check to make sure the child was feeding well and the mother not bleeding excessively.

Afton took another tentative step towards the bed, then turned decisively and went back to where her basket sat on the table. She opened it, carefully unpacked her medicines and laid aside a pile of bloody bandages for laundering. She had already buried the afterbirth in a place that would remain secret only to her and the mother, whom she would tell of its location when she visited. No matter what the priests might teach, it was a form of sacred earth magic every bit as protective as the baptismal rite.

She scowled, remembering how Friar William had arrived to perform that rite as she was leaving. She did not like the man, if man he could be called with his big belly and shiny, tonsured skull. But Afton was not stupid. Should the crops fail, the cows colic, or goddess forbid fever break out, she knew quite well who the Friar would blame and what the consequences of that blame would be. So, though she found the Friar's pious prattle about sin and damnation hypocritical and ridiculous, she went to mass faithfully every week. She bowed her head, knelt, stood and prayed like the rest of the villagers in Clipstone and only she knew it was a total mockery. Already marked by her profession, she did not need to give him any other reason to single her out.

She took a deep, cleansing breath, reminding herself of her mother's teachings that all faiths were worthy of respect; all goddesses were one goddess, all gods but one god. Her mother had been sincerely devout, serenely comfortable with worshipping the Christian God and the Goddess side by side. "They are but different sides of the same divine power, daughter."

Afton remembered railing back at her mother once. "How can you say that? The Friar would have us believe that we are evil and unclean, merely because we are women."

"The Friar is a man, love. As were those who wrote the Christian holy book. What can you expect them to understand of women's mysteries?" Afton was unsatisfied with that explanation, but let the matter drop. By then, her mother had been very ill and Afton did not want to disturb her with contention.

The sun peeked over the window ledge of her east-facing cottage, kissing her brow with its morning rays. If she wanted to gather the herbs and plants she needed while they were still wet with the morning dew, she needed to hurry. Her supplies of willow bark and clover were running low and there were certain other plants coming to the end of their bountiful summer season. There was time enough for a bath and bed later. Slinging the empty basket over her arm, Afton left the cottage through the back door which led directly into the vast eastern reaches of Sherwood Forest.

###

The graveyard was a madhouse. A haze of smoke obscured the faint dawn and people rushed to and fro, hurrying to safety dragging or carrying the wounded and dying with them. By a supreme effort of will, Guy hoisted himself from the open grave that led to the tunnel, biting down savagely on his lip to quell the scream of pain that threatened to burst forth. He tasted blood and at the same time, felt a fresh spurt from the wound in his belly as he heaved himself upright, leaning on a gravestone. "Just a little longer," he prayed to no one in particular. Surely God had no interest in helping one such as him.

Or perhaps He did because just then, a boy emerged from the haze, leading an old cart horse. "You there. Boy!" Guy thought his voice sounded weak and frail, lacking the crack of authority he'd learned to wield as effectively as any whip. But seemingly, it still held a semblance of command because the boy stopped, looking at him quizzically. "I need that horse. I need to…" his mind automatically searched for a lie. "There are people who haven't been…" he looked around him at the chaos and saw people heading for the forest. "I need to warn more people. Tell them where to go…to be safe." The boy hesitated. "NOW!" There. That was more like it. Shrugging, the boy tossed him the reins and scampered off into the woods. The horse probably had not belonged to him in the first place.

Guy watched the boy's retreating figure, looked at the horse, bridled but unsaddled, felt the blood trickling down almost to his boot-top and began to swear quietly and creatively. All he wanted was to find a peaceful, quiet place to lie down and die; not the dirty castle basement and god forbid not a graveyard. But no. He had to figure out a way to mount and ride an unsaddled horse with an open, poisoned wound that was probably going to kill him at any moment whether he willed it or not. Was nothing simple? Ever?

Jaw set stubbornly, he staggered as he led the sway-backed nag to an uprooted tree which had fallen near the edge of the graveyard. After a moment surveying the logistics, he clamped the reins between his teeth and levered himself up on its weathered trunk. Using the reins, then the horse's mane as a sort of rope, he hauled himself across its back, finally shifting his leg so that he was clumsily astride. He kicked the mare's sides weakly and it moved in an ambling walk. "Not that way." He hauled on the reins and pulled the horse's head around until it faced approximately northeast. "Now go. Go!" He took the reins and looped them about his wrists, hoping that would keep his mount moving if he passed out.

Which he promptly did. The horse, a docile creature trained to pull a plow, obediently plodded north oblivious to the dead weight on its back.

###

Afton yawned, placed the last of the willow bark into her basket and took out a tiny, sparkling stone. Murmuring under her breath, she planted the stone at the base of the giant willow and placed her hand lovingly on its broad trunk. "Thank you, old friend." Her eyes watered with exhaustion as she glanced at the sun's position, close to the horizon. With the Equinox just past, she knew there was just enough light to get home, write up her notes on the birth and go to bed. It was as well she had checked in on Edwina and the babe earlier in the afternoon.

When she stopped by the simple, thatched-roof cottage just after the noon meal, Edwina had been awake nursing her child. After a few questions and a thorough examination of the baby, Afton perched for a moment on her friend's bed and rested. "He's a fine, big boy," she complimented.

Her good-sister looked at her closely. "He is that. Like to have worn us both out, he did. You look half-dead, Afton. You should go home and rest yourself."

Afton shrugged, "I am little tired, perhaps. I'll go home soon, after I finish my harvesting." She patted the handle of the basket sitting at her feet.

Edwina's fair brows drew together in concern. "Afton…" she started. Sighing, she squared her thin shoulders and continued firmly, "You can't keep going on like this. You need help. You need a husband to help you around your place. You need a family. A daughter to train. Marry again, Afton."

It was an old argument between them. Afton smiled, "You're just saying that because you have a new babe at the breast. It's only natural to want all your friends to have one as well."

"'Tis not the reason, and you know it. We are grateful for the work you do. God knows, there's many in this village who wouldn't be living if you didn't do it. But you're killing yourself. There are at least a half dozen men who'd marry you at the snap of your fingers. One of them could work your land, do the chores, keep you fed and cared after."

Afton stood abruptly. "No. Thank you, Edwina, for your estimation of my charms but you flatter me. There are many women in the village, younger and much prettier than I and maidens besides. I will never marry again. Edward was husband enough for a lifetime."

Edwina gazed down at her son, sleeping beside her in the rushes. "Afton, my brother wouldn't have wanted…"

Afton grabbed her basket, clutching the handle until her knuckles were white. "Edwina," she interrupted, "I really must be about my work. I'll check on you again in a few days. You know what to do. Send for me if you need anything." With that, she slipped out the door, leaving her friend open-mouthed and shaking her head.

Afton resolutely tried to put the conversation out of her mind and she considered her route home. She contemplated taking the short, quarter-mile deer path through the orchard, but decided in her current state perhaps the longer road through the village would present fewer obstacles for her to trip over. She started in that direction and was only feet from the road when she heard the sound of hooves on the packed dirt. Instantly, she crouched in the tall grass by the side of the road. Had she been on the east side of the village, she'd have thought nothing of a traveler on the road near dark. But she was on the west side, only yards from the vast forest of Sherwood. Between the Sherriff's men and the outlaws, nothing good ever came from Sherwood.

Except Robin Hood, she reminded herself. But he and his gang mostly troubled themselves with the area closer to Locksley and Nottingham Castle, to the southwest. In her village he was all but legend, a masked figure who sometimes slipped by in the night leaving the odd sack of coin with the village elders to be used for seed corn, extra food or whatever else might be needful. Afton had never seen him and despite his benign reputation, she had no wish to encounter him alone on a twilit road. She knew well that widows often paid for their independence and power with their personal security.

Afton could hear the horse drawing nearer. She peered out of her hiding place in the grass and saw a nondescript gray horse, walking lazily down the road. She settled back to wait for it to pass.

Later, she would swear it all had happened in the space of a few breaths. How the horse had shied at something, real or imagined. How the man had slid helplessly from its back and had not even tried to break his fall. How the horse had pulled him several feet before the reins came untangled and then shot off down the road as though the hounds of hell pursued it. How the man gave a howl of agony so heart wrenching that she was on her feet running towards him, her fear totally subsumed by healer's instinct.

She skidded to a stop, flinging herself down in the dirt beside his inert body. He lay on his back on the road, a pool of crimson slowly seeping from beneath brown leather and muddying the dust. His face and hands were deathly white beneath dirt and blood. Desperately, she felt for the pulse in his neck. It fluttered there like a trapped bird, uneven beneath her questing fingers. His eyes were open, shadowed gray in the fading light, and his mouth worked helplessly trying to form words. "Don't try to talk," she pleaded. "Goddess, I've got to think what to do!"

His pale hand shot out and clamped around her slender neck, strong enough despite the blood loss to make her cough and choke. He pulled her close, bringing her ear to his lips.

"Nothing. You…will…do…nothing."


	2. Chapter 2

"Nothing," Afton muttered under her breath, tearing at the laces of her overdress. "Nothing, my lily white…" her lips clamped down over the obscenity. Thank the Goddess the man had passed out or she might have been choked to death. "I _should_ leave you there, you ungrateful…sod!" It was the strongest word she would allow herself to say. She knew in her bones she could never leave him to die, but it made her feel stronger thinking about it. She was already exhausted, it was dark, and somehow she had to move a very large man back to her cottage to have any hope of saving his life. A large, very unhappy man with an apparent death wish. Instinct told her if he awoke again, he would certainly fight her.

"Not this time," she addressed him fiercely. "I will _not_ stand by and watch another man bleed to death before my eyes. Do you hear me?" The last words were nearly a screech as sudden, hot tears burned her eyes. She knuckled them away impatiently. "Oh, Edward…" she raised her eyes to the sky, where the first stars shone faintly in the cobalt twilight, "I'm sorry. So sorry." She took a deep, calming breath, wishing Edwina had never brought the subject so close to the surface today. This was no time for memories or sentiment.

Afton slid out of her overdress and laid it next to the man on the road. It looked absurdly short compared to his long body, but it was all she had to work with. Groaning with the effort, she rolled him onto it and tugged experimentally on the sleeves. It was sturdy linen, but she feared the fabric would simply rip under his weight and then where would they be? Grasping the sleeves she pulled, first gingerly then harder. His body inched towards her. The fabric stretched slightly but held. She pulled firmly, sliding him ever so slowly toward the path she had just come down moments…hours?...before. She had no hope of dragging him the long way and besides, she had no desire to explain to anyone what she was doing dragging a mortally wounded man through the village at night.

Once off the road, an agonizing quarter of an hour later, she stopped to rest among the goldenrod that grew alongside the trail. Their tips, heavy with pollen, swayed and rustled in the freshening evening breeze. She contemplated going for help, or perhaps trying to find the wayward horse. But a strange compulsion told her that if she left, she would never see the man alive again. He lay still as stone, yet the tiny pulse still beat in his neck. She knew without even seeing the wound, perhaps better than anyone, that it should have already killed him. Yet he stubbornly clung to life.

"Who are you?" she whispered. "What happened to you?"

###

In the end, what should have been a half hour walk took two. Her makeshift travois kept snagging and catching on roots as she stumbled, nearly blind, through the dark. Even though her back was strong from years of hard work, she still had to stop to stretch and rest. Arms limber from supporting mothers walking through their labors still ached with the strain. Twice, the man stirred and she froze, afraid he would wake and try to harm himself or her. But he simply moaned feebly and passed back into unconsciousness. By the time she reached the back door of her cottage, her fingers were so numb she could barely work the latch. She contemplated treating him in the yard, with vague thoughts of an outdoor fire and blankets. But she needed him inside, with all her medicines and tools at hand and away from prying eyes. There would be time enough later, if he lived, to explain his presence to the other villagers. The last thing she needed was another conclave of people looking doleful and telling her it was hopeless.

Again, memory threatened to intrude and she drove it back, hauling savagely on the linen sleeves. "This. Is. Not. Edward…" Once over the threshold, the dress and its occupant slid smoothly over the floor causing her to fall backwards on her rump. Absurd tears of pain and humiliation coursed down her cheeks and into her parched mouth. She staggered to her feet and drew a dipper of water from the bucket. Though she had drawn it that morning (no, she reminded herself, the morning before) and it was warm and stagnant, she drank it down thirstily.

Finally, the man was safely positioned on his back before the fire. Which had gone completely out. Not even a single ember remained. Biting back a cry of rage and frustration, Afton fetched flint and steel, wood and tinder and kindled another fire. She poured the water from the bucket into the kettle and swung it over the fire. She really ought to draw a fresh bucket, but her energy was nearly gone. The water would be fine once it had boiled.

While she waited for it to heat, she lit the lamps and surveyed her patient more closely. His clothing was black under intricately embossed, brown leather armor. His hair, matted and tangled, was very dark as well. Against the backdrop of unrelieved darkness, his face and neck were pale as a corpse's. She was shaken enough to feel for his pulse once more. Remarkably it had not changed. Whoever he was, he had a strong constitution. It took her long moments to figure out the right combination of buckles, straps and clasps to loosen the armor and longer still to drag it off his body without disturbing his wounds.

Afton's physical strength was waning fast. She had not slept or eaten in over a day and her arms ached with the strain of dragging his dead weight across the field. She still could not quite believe she had done it. Even now, the feat had begun to recede into a haze of exhaustion and pain. She forced herself to rise and opened a door leading to a shed attached to the cottage. In the shed, rows of shelves contained neatly organized glass vials of dried herbs, seeds and berries. More herbs dried on wooden racks and from the low rafters. Larger jars, neatly labeled, held tonics and salves. She scanned the shelves for herbs for disinfecting and healing and also some to make a strengthening tonic for herself. She was thankful to have collected willow bark, though its pain-relieving qualities would do her patient no good. The bleeding was too severe and willow would make it worse, thinning the blood. But it would make an excellent remedy for her own sore muscles. She selected arnica to make a poultice against swelling and also goldenseal and garlic for an infusion to cleanse the wound as well as several other things she hoped would be useful. From a low cupboard, she fetched a roll of clean linen to use for bandages; a precious pair of silver scissors; a long, sharp needle; and stout, red thread.

A quarter of an hour later, the man was still alive, she was sipping the last of a hot, stimulating brew and it was time to start the serious business of seeing if he could be healed. She spread a piece of linen on the floor next to him and laid out her tools which had been carefully boiled in the kettle. The village biddies scoffed at her insistence on cleansing her healing implements but her mother had always insisted upon it having picked up the knowledge from a travelling Moor years before. "I don't know what kind of magic it is, daughter, but it seems to protect against wound fever. It can't hurt." Afton heard her mother's soft contralto in her head and wished with all her heart that she was still by her side to advise and collaborate. But she had another Mother. One who would never leave her.

Kneeling by his side, she closed her eyes and pulled a leather cord from underneath her shift. On it was a charm engraved with a triple spiral, cunningly forged from silver. Grasping the charm tightly in her hand, she centered her consciousness on the task before her and spoke. "Goddess, help me. I know I am but your imperfect tool and it is by your will alone he should live or die. Only please…" she trailed off, unable to voice the wish.

"Interesting…prayer. Do you…think it will help?" The sneering whisper was so soft, she almost did not hear it. Her eyes snapped open and were met once more by twin pools of silver-blue, icy and vivid against pale skin. "Told you. Nothing. Foolish girl. You can do…nothing."

Afton laid a calming hand on his shoulder. "There's always something that can be done. Just, please, let me look." He grabbed her wrist, weaker than before, thank the Goddess. There would be bruises on her neck come the morning. She did not need more.

"Nothing. Foolish girl." Afton bristled, but the man stroked her wrist, looking at her almost sorrowfully, and whispered one more word. "Poison."

It took a moment to register. "Poison? You mean…you mean your wounds are poisoned?" She had thought him the victim of something less sinister, perhaps a hunting accident, and cursed herself for allowing past experience to blind her to the obvious. Of course they were sword cuts. "What kind of poison?" The man's eyes were drifting closed once more. Afton slapped him smartly on the cheek. "Stop that! What kind of poison? Do you know?"

"Won't…give up, will you, girl?"

"No. And I'm not a girl."

"You look like one…to me. Aconitine. Dagger…in the back. Now…let me die…?"

"No, I will not. What time?" she asked sharply. "How long since you were wounded?"

"Stubborn. Willful. Foolish." He still held her wrist, his hand dwarfing hers where it lay on his shoulder. "Like Ma-." He shook his head fiercely. "Happened…near noontide."

Her mind raced over the hours. It was just past the equinox, as she had noted earlier; two hours since sunset. Eight hours since noontide. She sucked in her breath, a sharp sound of disbelief. "Noontide? Whoever you are, it's clearly not up to me to let you die or not. You should _already_ be dead. Several times over. Are you sure it was aconitine?"

"Yes…gave it to her…myself."

Afton's brows drew together in an expression of total confusion. She could have sworn that his lips twitched into something like a smirk as he watched her try to work that out. A long moment passed with only the sound of their twinned breathing, his rapid and hoarse, hers light and soft. His eyes drifted closed again and his gentle grip on her wrist slackened. But his breathing did not stop.

_Aconitine_. She racked her brain for everything she knew about the "mother of poisons." If he had really been stabbed with a dagger coated in it, it should have killed him within minutes. It would have numbed his hands and lips, cruelly twisted his guts and finally stopped his heart. Yet here he was. He simply had to have been mistaken…unless…she looked at the blood that still seeped from the puncture near his left shoulder blade.

She rose and walked swiftly to the cupboard, rummaging around at its very back. Finally, she found and extracted a small bottle containing dried yellow flowers. For the second time in less than an hour, she found herself thinking of her mother and the Moor. She and her mother had been cleaning her mother's herb closet shortly after Afton's marriage. Her mother had been speaking of her encounter with the strange, dark-skinned man. "We were talking about the uses of senna as a purgative. I gave him some that I had prepared the summer before and he gave me these flowers. A similar plant, he said, but from a land even farther away than the Holy Land. He said that an infusion of these flowers mixed with belladonna would counter almost any poison without causing excessive purging." Afton remembered her mother's light, scornful laugh. "I didn't believe him, of course, but I kept them as a curiosity. He said they don't lose their potency over time, so perhaps you should take them, Afton. I've eaten your cooking, my darling. Edward might need them someday!" They had shared a laugh and Afton had put the flowers in the back of her own herb closet, forgotten until now.

Suddenly she shivered, overcome by the sensation that she was caught in a situation not entirely within her control. She clasped her charm and commanded her racing heart to slow. There was no time to consider why the Goddess had conspired to give her the potential antidote to this stranger's poisoned wound. She still had to treat the wound and brew the antidote. If he would let her.


	3. Chapter 3

Guy surveyed the room through barely open eyes, trying to make sense of where he was and how he had gotten there. He remembered the fight. Remembered 'dying.' Remembered commandeering the horse. But after that, everything was hazy. He remembered falling and then a girl, her face in shadow, backlit by the setting sun. He remembered his incoherent rage at her interruption of the private agony of his death. By then, he had abandoned hope of finding a peaceful place and the middle of the road seemed just fine. He remembered squeezing the slender stalk of the girl's neck under his fingers. Violence would follow him even to death, it seemed.

He cursed his body for refusing to die because now he was here and the girl had turned out to be a harpy of a healer with mousy, tangled hair, a plain brown shift and demanding questions. But he grew distracted as she moved purposefully through the room, pounding herbs with a mortar and pestle and then placing them in two separate bowls. She drew a dipperful of boiling water and poured it over each bowl of herbs. A pleasant, flowery smell drifted through the cottage adding to the sense of peace Guy was beginning to feel stealing over him. The pain was a distant throb and the numbness in his fingers and toes was beginning to spread. Perhaps death was approaching at last. It was warm and quiet in the cottage and while it was not the location of his choosing, Guy began to feel that it might not be a bad place to die.

So he did not protest when she knelt beside him and cut away his black linen shirt with her silver scissors. He even felt an uncharacteristic urge to comfort her when he noticed the tears sparkling in her eyes as she finally beheld the entirety of his wounds. After all, why should a healer cry over him and why should he care if she did? After soaking a cloth in one of the solutions, she began gently cleansing the wounds. The liquid stung and fresh blood seeped forth. He could feel it pooling beneath him. Oddly, the healer did not attempt to staunch the flow. Not that it mattered. He closed his eyes, fully expecting his heart to stop at any moment. It never occurred to him that he had been telling himself that all day.

He felt the cool touch of her hand on his forehead. "Are you awake? Can you answer me?" she asked. Had she really sounded waspish, just a little while ago? Her voice sounded soft and husky now. She smoothed the tangled hair back from his face. "I need you to understand what I'm going to tell you. Please…" the last word was almost a sob. He took pity on her.

"Awake," he whispered, opening his eyes. She was sitting very close, holding the other bowl of herbal fluid. In the lamplight, her brown eyes glinted with golden sparks. "Don't…cry over me." A faint pink flush spread over her cheeks and she looked away briefly.

But all too soon her gaze returned to lock with his. "I believe that I may be able to counteract the poison. I think…no I'm sure, I must be, that because you have bled so much, the poison has been slower to take hold in your body. It's the only explanation I have for why you're still alive." Her mouth quirked in a wry smile. "Other than sheer stubbornness."

He frowned. "Don't…want to be cured. I want…to die." He turned his face away from her, away from the look in her eyes. She had none of the dispassion of the healers he had known. None of the detachment. For whatever reason, this was personal for her. A personal battle she seemed determined to win, for the outrageous girl actually took hold of his chin and forced him to look at her again.

"You may still get that chance. You have lost a lot of blood. Your insides may be damaged. The antidote might kill you. I can't be sure. But I've seen this kind of wound before and if I can only counter the poison, I think I can heal it…this time." The hand holding the bowl trembled, the precious liquid sloshing perilously toward the sides. She set it down again. "Please. I have to try."

_This time_, Guy mused. So she _had_ lost someone, probably someone dear, to a similar wound. That much was clear. The old Guy would have resented her insistence. Offering his body as redemption for a simple village healer wasn't something he would have considered his responsibility before. _Before_ was the key word, wasn't it? Because for a brief time, he'd been allied with a man who did consider such things to be his responsibility. A man to whom altruism was a way of life. Robin had forgiven him the worst crime imaginable, provided him with the means to redeem himself, called him friend at the end and damn the bastard to hell, had changed Guy.

Practically his whole life had been an endless stream of complications, plots, mistakes and misjudgments. Could not even something as simple as death be easy? He sighed, silently cursing the fact that while the poison and his wound had weakened his body, his mind remained clear enough to decide it had a conscience after all. One way or the other, he was going to die; he was sure of it. A few extra hours of pain meant nothing to him, but it might mean a lot to her. He took her hand.

"Try."

###

Afton watched the man closely. He was thinking about it, she knew it. She cursed herself for letting her emotions show. Had she not been so exhausted and in so much pain herself, she would never have allowed it to happen. She tried to prepare herself for refusal but she could not shake the lingering sensation of fate she had felt when she found the Moor's flowers. This man was meant to be here. For reasons still unclear to her, the Goddess had placed him in her path. What possible purpose would there be for that, if he chose to die?

"Try."

The word was little more than a whisper but she felt electricity surge between them as his eyes locked on hers and he took her hand. Her scalp prickled and gooseflesh rose on her arms. She felt infused with power, and more than a little frightened. Drawing a cleansing breath, she cradled his head in her hand, lifting it slightly.

"We'll start by having you drink this…" After the first sip, he struggled against it, clamping his lips closed and trying to turn his head away. "You said you wanted me to try."

"Didn't say I'd be happy…about it," the man answered irritably. "Bitter."

She started to speak and thought the better of what she was going to say. She could manage a difficult patient much more easily than one with a death wish. "Don't make me hold your nose. Because I will do it," she retorted crisply. Reluctantly, sip by sip, the man swallowed all of the bitter brew.

"Why's medicine always…bitter?" he asked weakly.

"Hush. Stop talking and save your strength. We've not even begun the worst part of this, you and I." She considered for a moment, deciding something. "My name is Afton Cooper, though I daresay you'll be using more unsavory names for me before I'm done stitching you up." She looked at him pointedly, hoping he would give his name without being asked, but instead caught his puzzled expression.

"Afton? Not…a saint's name."

_Why must everything be crammed into the confines of Christianity?_ she thought irritably. "It is not," she said, a tinge of pride in her voice. "My mother named me for the river Afton."

"The priest …allowed it?"

Afton rolled her eyes. "Of course not. I have a Christian saint's name, but my mother never used it and neither do I. My mother believed that the Christian faith is not the only true one."

The man made the sign of the cross, though it was an obvious effort. "You are…a pagan? A witch?"

"I'm sure I have been called so. I am a healer, nothing more," she replied carefully. Her mother had impressed upon her at an early age to be cautious about discussing such things with strangers. Christian or pagan, healers always lived in danger of persecution. One chance word, an untimely death or injury, even a spat with a neighbor could mean the stake.

"Still…you need to…beware the witch hunters." His expression was genuinely concerned.

"I can take care of myself, thank you. Now enough talking, whoever you are." She pressed her lips together and glared. Surprisingly, she heard a rumble that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.

"Guy. Name's…Guy."

"All right then, Guy. _Now_ you hush." He did, not even uttering so much as a murmur as she helped him roll onto his side so she could clean and examine the puncture on his back more thoroughly. He remained silent when she took up her needle and red thread and began the excruciating process of stitching the wound, the shallower of the two. The blade had entered high on his shoulder, piercing muscle but missing his heart. She glanced up from her work now and then to find his eyes on her. Each time, she felt another pulse of the strange energy and it sustained her through the arduous process.

Afton did not realize he had been biting his lip until she saw the trickle of blood leak from the corner of his mouth. Wordlessly, she bathed his lip and face with a soft cloth soaked in the cooled goldenseal infusion.

She made a thick pad of linen bandages and pressed it to the stitched puncture to cushion it. Then, she helped him roll onto his back once again. She moved on to clean and examine the deeper belly wound, hoping that the blade had not punctured any of his internal organs. The position of the cut was lucky, low enough to have missed his heart, yet high enough to have missed his stomach. Afton silently blessed her mother for teaching her about the inner workings of the body.

As she worked the fine, even stitches she wondered why such a brave man wished for death so fervently. Clearly he had no fear of pain. He simply endured it, almost as though it was something he expected and was accustomed to. She finished her stitching and glanced at his face once more. His eyes were closed and she wondered if he had finally passed out from the pain but as she watched, they fluttered open in an expression close to panic. After a moment, his gaze fell on her and he relaxed slightly.

Afton welcomed the moment, a familiar one. She had seen it many times in laboring mothers. Most of the time, they didn't need help, merely the comfort of knowing there was someone present who knew what to do. But Guy did need her help and there was still so much more to be done.

"Shhhh…it's all right," she said softly, not wanting to startle him. "Yes, I'm still here. I'm going to prepare a poultice and then I'll bandage this wound with it. It's much deeper than the other. Then you can try to sleep if you like."

"Not…until you do. You're tired…too." His voice was raspy and his lips were dry. She dipped a clean cloth in water and dribbled a few drops into his mouth. "More? So thirsty."

"Not until I'm sure your innards are all in working order." She laid the cloth aside and rose, fetching a cauldron with yet another herbal liquid simmering in it. She began to dip strips of linen in the liquid, soaking them and laying them aside to cool. "And don't be ridiculous. I'll probably be up with you all night. Besides, I'm used to being tired. I don't expect people to take my rest into consideration when they get sick or hurt. Babies certainly come when they will. And this place doesn't care for itself, either." She flushed, regretting the snappish tone in her voice, but the truth was she did not need any reminders of her exhaustion.

"No…help? Husband?"

Her cheeks burned hotter. "No." She began laying the warm strips of linen over the stitched wound. "Is it too hot? Don't talk, just nod. Talking is too much effort." She spoke quickly to cover her discomfiture. When the last strip was in place, she sat back and surveyed her work. She had done all she could for the time being except watch, wait and change the medicinal bandages. Perhaps another dose of the antidote in the morning. If he survived that long.

"Af…ton. Rest." Guy moved his hand slowly towards where she knelt, pushing against her hip. "Go."

"I told you, I can't." Her voice was thick with unshed tears. She was tired, dirty, overwhelmed and wholly unused to having anyone care about her well-being in even a small way. Undone by the gesture of concern, she turned away before he could see the tears spill over.

"Rest," he repeated. _Stubborn bastard_. Blindly, she staggered to her feet and nearly fell because they were so numb. Then the pins and needles hit and she bit down on a scream. Hobbling the few steps to her bed, she yanked at the woolen blankets until they pulled free. He would need the warmth. And perhaps she would lie down for a just moment, beside him so that she would be close if he needed her.

Dragging the blankets back to where Guy lay before the fire, she made a rough pallet from one and laid it along his right side. The other, she spread over him. Casting herself down beside him, she twitched a corner of the blanket over her legs and was instantly asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Afton awoke several hours later from a dream. "Edward," she sighed, curling closer to the body next to her. But something was not right. Her hand rested on his chest, over his heart, but the play of the muscles felt different. Edward had been a big man, heavily muscled with a thick pelt of hair on his chest. The skin beneath her fingertips was smooth, almost silky. And burning with fever.

Her eyes flew open as she remembered where she was and why. Her head was pillowed on Guy's right shoulder. Somehow he had gotten his arm around her in the night. Worse still, her shift was rucked up and her thigh lay immodestly across his. Thank the Goddess he was not awake to notice.

Taking care not to disturb him, she slid out of his embrace and straightened her clothing. Surely her breathing was rapid and her heart pounded from the surprise, nothing more. She twisted her long brown hair into a rough knot at the back of her neck and wondered if she would have time for a bath later. She needed to figure out a way to bathe Guy as well. Her profession demanded cleanliness and order. Dirt offended her, particularly in her own home.

First, though, she needed to brew a potion for the fever. She checked it with the back of her hand against his forehead. It was not life threatening. _Yet_. He was resting quietly and his breathing and pulse were regular, if still disturbingly weak. She went into the herb shed and selected hyssop, licorice root and thyme for a fever brew as well as supplies for a fresh poultice.

As she was stirring the fire back to life, she remembered that the water bucket was empty. She laid her supplies on the table and threw a woolen cloak over her shoulders. She would have to leave him for at least a quarter of an hour to fetch more. But there was no help for it. If he lived, his recovery would be long and arduous. She could not be with him every moment and there was no one else to help.

She paused for a moment, stroking the side of his face. "Stay, Guy. Don't…go. Do you hear me?" she said softly. Then she picked up the water bucket, and an extra for good measure, and slipped out the back door.

###

When he heard the back door to the cottage bump closed, Guy opened his eyes. It was still dark outside. He listened. He did not hear the chirp of birds outside, nor the sound of anything stirring. It was not yet dawn. Not yet a full day since he had been wounded, yet hours longer than he had expected to live. He wished the little healer had not woken when she had. He had been comfortable, imagining himself lying next to Marian, safe and loved. Never mind that Marian's hair had never smelled of flowers and grass. Or that she had been more lusciously curvaceous than the slender slip of the girl in his arms. Afton was warm and female. That was enough for him to slip into the fantasy. It would have been a nice way to die.

He felt hot and his wounds ached abominably. Bleeding to death would have been so much easier and preferable to dying slowly of infection and wound fever. He picked weakly at the stitches on the wound in his belly, but they were too tight to remove and when he twitched at them, agony shot through his body. He had no choice but to lie, helpless, and accept whatever fate had decreed for him. Perhaps a slow, painful death was no more than he deserved.

To distract himself, he examined what he could see of the firelit cottage. It was scrupulously tidy, everything in its place. Someone had once taken the trouble to build a wood plank floor, rather than the swept dirt most crofters had. The windows had tidy curtains, dyed a festive yellow. The blanket that covered him from the waist down was also woven with brightly dyed stripes of wool. Of course, a healer with intimate knowledge of the healing properties of plants must also know of their coloring properties. As in all the cottages he had ever seen where a woman lived, a spinning wheel sat in a corner of the room. Spinning was a daily task for all women below the rank of noble. Even then, many noble women preferred it to finer work like embroidery.

He wondered again how she managed without a husband or children. Raised to be the master of extensive lands and people, he was well aware of the tasks each person had to do in order to survive and prosper even if he did not have to do them himself. Afton was responsible for the work of at least three people. She had all the usual woman's tasks: spinning, cooking, sewing, tending the garden. But she also had to do all the man's work. Which probably explained why the roof thatching looked like it had seen better days and some of the furniture had been inexpertly repaired. There was no possible way she could work in the fields. He guessed she must trade her professional services for food and coin.

Therefore, Guy assumed there was a village nearby whose inhabitants relied on Afton for medical care. That meant she also had to make time to gather and prepare herbs, not to mention treating the sick and injured. It was a great load to rest on the thin shoulders of a girl who looked to be no more than twenty and one, at the most. He wondered how she'd managed to attain that age without marrying. Of course, many cunning women chose to live alone, not wanting the responsibilities of a husband and children but usually after they were…

"Widowed. She's a widow." Another piece of the puzzle that was Afton fell into place. Edward, she had sleepily called him. He supposed it was only fair, since he had been deliberately imagining her to be someone else. He heard the door creak, followed by Afton's soft tread on the floorboards.

For the first time, he really looked at her. She was slight and short. He supposed he would top her by a foot, standing up. But he could tell by the way she easily hefted the heavy water buckets that she was stronger than she appeared. She would have to be, to keep up with all the work. That, coupled with her stubborn determination at least partially explained how she had gotten him here. In the firelight, her hair was gold-lit brown forming a widow's peak above a plain, heart-shaped face. Yet her large, intelligent brown eyes and full, pink lips gave her face a certain sweetness. His mind drifting, he wondered what her smile would look like.

He watched as she moved around the room, preparing food and medicine. Her movements were economical, none wasted. Her small hands flew about their tasks, chopping herbs, grinding them with a mortar and pestle, portioning them in bowls. She brushed a strand of hair from her face with the back of her hand. It fell back immediately and she blew at it with an irritable huff. Guy nearly laughed aloud because the gesture was so in keeping with what he already knew of her.

Leaving her work for the moment, she snatched up a wooden-backed brush. She loosened her hair from the rough knot. Unbound, it rippled nearly to her hips. Her impatience was evident as she yanked the brush through her unruly locks. Hair smoothed, she pulled it over her shoulder and swiftly braided it, then coiled the braid into a knot stuck through with a wooden hairpin. The errant lock thus contained, she returned to her work. He found himself wondering what it would be like to bury his hands in that glorious hair and decided he really must be feverish to think of such a thing.

Afton knelt beside him, setting down a rough wooden tray with several bowls upon it. "You're awake. How do you feel?" She laid her hand on his forehead. It was soft and cool against his feverish skin.

"How do you think I feel?" His voice was still weak, but at least he could speak a coherent sentence without gasping for breath.

"I imagine you're hot, and in a lot of pain," she replied mildly. "Otherwise, surely you would not be so rude. Be still, now. This is going to hurt." She began peeling off layers of the old poultice. They stuck in several places causing enough pain as they came off to make his eyes water. "I'm sorry for that. I should not have slept so long and let them dry out."

"You needed the rest." And then, just to be wicked, he added, "You were comfortable. I didn't want to wake you." She blushed scarlet from her throat to her hairline, but said nothing. It seemed the healer was not a woman to intimidate or tease easily.

She checked the bandage on his back, and when she bent to check the poultice on the front of his body, her charm slipped from under her shift and hung free. He reached up and touched it. "I saw this before. What…does it mean?"

Afton sat back on her heels, clearly considering how to answer. She lifted her chin and looked him squarely in the eye, tucking away the charm. "It is a symbol of my faith and my mother's before me," she said simply. "It is a private matter, as I'm sure you can understand."

He nodded, remembering how Matilda, the healer from Locksley, had angered the Sherriff and been sentenced to being drowned by ducking, before she managed to escape. "Such heresy…could get you killed. You must be careful." The admonition confused him. _Why should I care?_ Still, the resolute spirit encased in a seemingly fragile body made him want to keep her safe, witch or not. He was about to make mention of Matilda's trials but she stopped him before he could continue.

"Perhaps we can discuss it another time," she said firmly. Guy subsided, not wanting to press her on a matter that clearly made her feel vulnerable. She silently offered him one of the bowls.

He raised an eyebrow. "Another bitter brew?"

Her mouth quirked in a slight smile. "I remembered your…preference and put honey in this one. Drink it. It's for your fever."

He did so, noting that the honey did not quite disguise the earthy flavor of the herbs. "I appreciate your concern, Mistress." It was as close as he would come to thanks for all her efforts on his behalf. She nodded fractionally.

"Rest, now. I have work to do. If you have need of anything, just speak."

###

As the sun rose, so did Guy's fever. Afton kept a sharp eye on him, checking him frequently and noting the angle of the sun through the window so she would know when to dose him again. After teasing her about her improper behavior and complaining about the medicine, he subsided into silence, at times watchful, at times sleeping or appearing to be.

She went about her work perfunctorily, first fixing porridge with honey and a hot brew for her morning meal. Unsure whether he had internal injuries, she would allow Guy nothing by mouth other than her own medicines or a few drops of water squeezed from a cloth. She knew his fever would continue to rise and eventually burn off the liquids in his body. Soon, she would have to begin keeping him cool with moist cloths applied externally, but not quite yet.

Breakfast finished, she heated water and washed all the dishes and implements she had used over the past day. Then she tidied the cottage, remade her bed and swept the floor with a rush broom. After checking Guy again, she sat down to spin and worked at that task until the sun shining in the front window no longer cast its beams on the floor. Her cottage faced straight east, so she knew the noon hour was nigh. She glanced at Guy, who appeared to be asleep.

She felt horribly dirty and her hair desperately needed a wash. She longed to scrub the grime from her body and put on clean clothes. The problem was, how to do it and retain her modesty? She supposed she could do it in the yard behind the cottage; it was warm enough outside. But anyone might stop by, seeking her help. It would have to be inside and she would just have to hope Guy stayed asleep long enough for her to finish. Besides, she scoffed, it was unlikely he would find anything attractive about her person and even if he did, he was in no condition to take improper advantage of her. All things considered, she'd rather have _him_ see her unclothed than one of her neighbors. At least he'd be going away someday. _Or dying_. But she quickly smothered that uncharitable thought.

She fetched more water from the spring and set it to heat. Then she laid out a cake of the rose scented soap she had made over the summer, her brush, a clean shift and kirtle, and the large linen squares she used as towels. All that organized, she dragged the large wooden tub close to the fire, but not so close as to disturb Guy who, she noted, was still sleeping. Edward had made the tub as a wedding present. It was fashioned similarly to a barrel, but shallow enough that she could step into it. Small as she was, she could sit down, if she kept her knees bent, though in practice she rarely did. She poured equal amounts of hot and cool water into the tub, keeping an earthen pitcher nearby to rinse her hair.

Everything was prepared, yet she hesitated to disrobe. Surely, Guy was sleeping? In any case, a fit of nerves was not going to get her any cleaner. She picked up one of the linen towels and wrapped it about her, under her shift, then pulled the garment over her head leaving her somewhat modestly covered from chest to mid-thigh. She stepped into the warm water, stealing another glance at him. His eyes were firmly closed and his chest rose and fell regularly. Feeling a bit bolder, she took up the soap and began to wash, shifting the towel as she cleaned herself so that she remained at least reasonably decent. Still, he did not wake.

"This is utterly ridiculous." Afton unwound the towel and tossed it to the floor beside the tub. Clearly, the fever had put the man into a deep sleep. She had nothing to worry about. She scrubbed herself thoroughly and washed her hair, even taking the time to use the wildflower rinse that kept it from tangling. She rinsed it then stretched, catlike, standing in the tub. It felt so good to be clean.

"You missed a spot."

The deep voice, rough with fever and sleep, startled her so much that she sat down hard in the tub, wrapping her arms around her knees for modesty's sake. "You have me at a disadvantage, sir," she said through clenched teeth. "Pray, close your eyes for a moment so I can make myself decent."

"I rather like the view, thank you." Her back was to him, but she could see his face in her mind. The corner of his mouth would be turned up in a half-smirk and he would be piercing her with that steely gaze.

She was starting to shiver. "Please, just close your eyes," she begged.

"No. I don't think so." She looked over her shoulder at him. His expression was exactly as she'd pictured.

"You are a…a scoundrel," she huffed.

"You have no idea." His voice was suddenly flat and dangerous, chilling her more than the cooling water. Desire for modesty warred with instinct to flee. The latter won. She surged from the tub, scattering water droplets in her wake, grabbed the towel and wrapped it securely about her once more. Snatching up her shift and kirtle, she bolted for the door. Let the villagers see her unclothed, she no longer cared. She only wanted away from that look, that voice and the fear of what unknown deeds could make a man sound like that.


	5. Chapter 5

Guy irritably shoved the blanket further down his body, feeling hot and wishing he could remove it completely. But he could not sit up on his own and Afton had fled the cottage, thanks to his foolish behavior. He had not meant to scare her or dishonor her. There was just something about her that made him want to puncture her unshakable serenity. He supposed he had succeeded.

He had awoken at the first splash of water into the tub and almost immediately realized what she was going to do. He knew he should have spoken out, spared her modesty. But he was curious and, he admitted, had no small prurient interest in what she would look like unclothed. It had been long since he had seen a woman thus.

Afton had not disappointed. Plain of face she might be, but her body was a glory of grace and perfect proportion. She was too slender for lush curves, but her pert breasts and gently swelling hips suited her frame and made a most enticing picture. Most of her skin was creamy, with darker brown at the throat and arms from exposure to the summer sun. Her wet hair hung past her hips, clinging to her buttocks in snakelike tendrils of dark honey.

Astonishingly, considering the gravity of his injuries, he had found himself rousing to the sight of her. To _her_ specifically, not as a stand-in for Marian. In the dim pre-dawn, with his eyes closed, he might have been able to pretend such a thing but it was impossible with her naked before him. In reality, the two women could not have been more different, physically.

He had caught her off guard. Teased her to see if he could make the blush rise again. But then suddenly, he'd found himself disgusted by his own behavior. What right had he to indulge in careless flirtation with this woman? _With any woman. Ever again_. Association with him brought nothing but pain and death. Things which he had no wish to inflict on gentle Afton, who so clearly wanted nothing but to help him. She had called him a name and his response had carried so much unthinking menace that she had fled, frightened.

Abruptly, he felt exhausted. Worn out in body and mind from the ceaseless moral battle he had been fighting for months…years, really. Every time he thought he had begun to rise above his amoral, violent past, something would happen to convince him that the struggle was pointless. With the last of his strength, he cursed Afton fluidly and viciously for denying him the death he so richly deserved and desired. Then he fell into a deep and fevered sleep.

###

Afton rapped on the door of Edwina's cottage, then let herself in knowing her good-sister was likely still abed. However, Edwina was sitting up in her rocker, nursing her son. She looked up, startled.

"Afton! What on earth?" She joggled the baby, who had started to fuss when he felt his mother tense.

"I'm sorry, 'Wina. I thought you'd be in bed. Are you well?" Afton pulled another chair close to the fire and sat down. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, to keep them from shaking.

"I'm as well as can be expected. But Afton, you're pale as a ghost. And your hair is soaking wet! What's happened?" Edwina's blue eyes were wide with concern.

Afton had intended to stay just long enough to catch her breath and then return home. But her good-sister's sincere concern combined with the stress of the past several days was her undoing. To her utter disgust she started to cry and then the whole story poured forth. Everything from finding Guy, to the long night of nursing, to waking up next to him and finally the humiliating episode of the bath. To her credit, Edwina simply listened, making proper noises of surprise and concern at all the right moments. When Afton finished, subsiding into hiccupping sobs, Edwina offered her opinion.

"Afton, what were you thinking? You can't keep him in your cottage and you a woman alone! What would people think? What would Friar William say?"

"What was I supposed to do, 'Wina? Let him die? I had to do something. It's…you can't understand what it's like for me," Afton answered, helpless to explain the soul-deep instinct she had to heal; to help.

"I think you need to move him elsewhere. Get a few of the men from the village to help you. Perhaps Friar William would let you move him to the chapel?" Edwina, being a sincerely devout person, had a higher opinion of the Friar than Afton.

"No! First of all, he's far too weak and too seriously injured to be moved. Secondly, I need to be close to all my medicines. No, Edwina. I have to do this myself. I just needed someone to talk to about it. Please, I beg you, don't tell anyone. Not even Christopher," Afton begged.

"I don't like the idea of keeping secrets from my husband, Afton. I've decided to name the baby after him," she said in a proud aside. Noting the unvoiced plea in Afton's eyes, she added, "But I won't say anything to Chris, as long as you keep checking in with me. If you can come by every few days, at least I'll know you're all right. And once I'm up and around, I'll visit and bring food, do what I can to help."

Afton let out a breath she did not know she had been holding. After the debacle of the bath and the frightful reminder from Guy that she had taken in a man whom she knew absolutely nothing about, she was not sure she would be able to return to the cottage. But knowing she could count on Edwina, even just to listen, lifted enough responsibility from her shoulders that she felt once again that she could go on.

"I'd better get back. He's taking a fever. The next few days are going to be difficult for both of us. I may not be able to get back tomorrow, or possibly the next day," she warned.

"If I don't hear from you by then, I'll come by. I should be able to walk that far. Don't worry, Afton. Somehow, we'll get you through this." Edwina nodded firmly.

"Thank you, 'Wina," Afton clasped her good-sister's hand. "Thank you so much."

###

She opened the door to the cottage and realized immediately that she had returned not a moment too soon. Guy was thrashing and muttering in feverish delirium, in serious danger of damaging the careful stitching she had done the night before. Hurrying in, she poured more of the fever concoction into a bowl and dropped to her knees beside him.

"Hush, now. Hush. Drink this. It will make you feel much better, I promise." She tried to prop him up slightly but his flailing made it impossible. She set the bowl aside and maneuvered her body so that his head was pillowed on her lap. She stroked the dark hair from his brow, alarmed to note that his fever had risen quicker and higher than she had expected it could in just over an hour. Picking up the bowl, she held it to his lips, trying to coax him into sipping from it.

Feebly, he batted it away, sending the liquid sloshing over his chest and Afton's lap. "No. No more. Don't make me beg," he said weakly, momentarily coherent. "Let me go. Just…let me go."

"You don't mean that. You can't," Afton protested. "I know it hurts. I know the fever burns. But you're a strong man, Guy. You can survive this." She stroked his shoulders, feeling the tension in his muscles. If he could, she knew he would be up and out the door.

"Don't want to. You don't know…the things I've done. Things I can't live with any more." His face was wretched, eyes glassy with tears he refused to shed. "Oh, god…Marian…" The grief in his voice was so palpable that Afton's throat tightened in sympathy. But whoever Marian was, it seemed thinking of her took the last of his strength because he subsided back against Afton, spent. Resolutely, she picked up the bowl again and patiently dribbled the liquid into his mouth, drop by drop so as not to choke him.

For the next three days and nights, she stayed by his side only rising to bring another bucket of fresh water close to hand. She changed his dressings, cooled his fever with wet cloths and dosed him with medicines in a ceaseless cycle of nursing until she was soaked to the skin and completely exhausted. Guy raved and cried for people who were not there. His mother, the Marian woman, someone named Archer. He talked in bits and pieces about things; horrifying things that Afton wished to shut out of her mind but which haunted her until she, too, thought herself delirious.

Edwina stopped by on the third morning with a basket of food, but could only stay long enough to assure herself that Afton was well. Towards dawn on the fourth day, with no change in Guy's condition, Afton finally broke down, curling up in a ball and weeping uncontrollably. Almost, _almost _she did not care whether he lived or died if it meant she could rest.

"Come, love, come to me." Afton looked up, tears streaking her face. Guy's eyes were open and he held his arms open, as though to welcome a lover. "I know I've hurt you. Let me make it right. Give me one more chance." His voice broke on the last words. Later, Afton remembered vaguely thinking that though she knew he could not be speaking of her, perhaps her closeness and touch would soothe him. She crept closer and lay down alongside him, as she had the very first night.

She did not expect him to hold her, as best he could, like something delicate and infinitely precious. She definitely did not expect him to turn his head and kiss her lips, gently at first but with increasing passion. Had she not been so caught off guard, she told herself later, she would have reacted with swift surety and pushed him away. Instead, she melted against him, returning his feverish kiss with utterly reckless abandon. His tongue was insistent against her lips and she parted them, allowing him to taste and explore as he would.

She lay along his right side, with his right arm around her waist and his left hand tangled in her hair, pulling her into the kiss with more strength than she would have thought possible. His right hand drifted down to caress the swell of her hip. Only when he tried to pull her atop him did she finally wrest herself from his embrace, unwilling to cause him pain by disturbing his wounds. He subsided back against the pallet smiling, eyes closed, drifting into honest sleep at last. She slept, herself, and when she awoke a few hours later, there were drops of sweat on his brow.

The fever had broken.


	6. Chapter 6

Things were both easier and more difficult for Afton after that night. For the first few days after his fever broke, Guy slept most of the time, relieving her of both of the need to constantly care for him and of the need to face the consequences of their kiss. Memories of it stole into her thoughts as she went about her daily work, heating her face and making her body tingle.

But all too quickly, it became clear he did not remember. So, during his brief periods of wakefulness, she felt safe sitting beside him talking about light matters like the coming harvest and the weather outside. He, in turn, reluctantly shared with her bits of information about himself. He told her that he had been raised to inherit and manage a large estate though he would not say where, so she thought he must be a noble. When Afton brought word one day of the destruction of Nottingham Castle, it was obvious that Guy had already known about it. When she pressed him, all he would say was that he had once worked for the Sherriff. He remained stubbornly reticent on any other circumstances of his life since adolescence.

He confused her greatly, talking easily with her one moment, sullen and resentful the next. At times, he seemed to welcome her touch, other times he shrank from it. It was as though he longed for affection but could not bring himself to accept it. When she was not keeping him company, he tended to spend his waking hours lying in silence, his eyes distant, a look of anguish on his face even when he should be comfortably numb thanks to her draughts. That unrelenting, insidious pain and rough vulnerability caught at Afton's heart, and she found herself taking care of him with far more tenderness than was customary for her. She knew well that his feverish passion had not been for her, but it had roused a longing within her that she was hard pressed to deny and she found herself looking for excuses to be close to him.

On one occasion, curiosity got the better of her. When Afton was once again summoned to Guy's pallet by his anguished calling for Marian in what was obviously a nightmare, she gently stirred him awake and sat by his side, her hand on his arm. She suspected that it would be proper to pull her hand away, but dismissed it. It felt natural—it felt good—to have his skin against her fingers.

"What happened?" she ventured. "Who is Marian?" The question had been on her mind for a while.

"Had a bad dream," he shook his head. It seemed as if he had not heard that second question. "It's all right now."

She decided to try a different approach. "Is there someone who might be looking for you? Someone you want to send a message to, to let them know that you are alive, and to find out if they are safe?" He shook his head even before she had finished, but still answered her in the end with a dejected "no" that made her heart twinge.

"What about this Marian?... Maybe…" It was at once her conviction and – if she were to be honest with herself – her fear that Marian was, if not Guy's wife, then his betrothed or beloved. She might have told herself repeatedly that it was no concern of hers, but she was inexplicably jealous of a woman who could command such anguished pining from a man she, Afton, should have no designs on.

At first Afton worried that one of Guy's wounds had opened up, so sudden and heartrendingly obvious was the agony that had flared in his face, though he tried to repress it. When it dawned on her that her question had provoked it, she wanted to apologize but bit her tongue in the certainty that an apology, by way of acknowledging his suffering, would only make him resentful. Lying propped on low stacked pillows as he was, Guy still made an effort to turn away, and Afton had to tighten her grip on his arm to make him see that, for the sake of his wounds if nothing else, she would not let him move any further.

"It doesn't matter," he finally gritted. "It is over."

"I'm sorry." Afton had to turn away herself, unable to bear the sight of his raw pain and desperate to hide her shameful relief at hearing his answer. Reluctantly, she lifted her hand from where it had rested on his arm, and stood up, studiously looking away. There was nothing, it seemed, that she could do to gain more insights into Guy's past, but his unwillingness to talk about his life only made her wonder more about the tragedies that must lurk there.

Fortunately, Guy's exhausted sleep freed Afton to resume her chores outside her home and in the village, and on some occasions, it helped distract her mind from dwelling too much on her patient. During her short forays from the cottage, she began harvesting the ripe apples from the orchard a basket at a time. Edwina continued to visit, as she had promised, bringing as much food as she could spare. It wasn't much, but it saved Afton the trouble of baking or bartering.

When three more days had passed since the fever broke, she decided that it was time to see if Guy could tolerate food. He looked terribly gaunt and pale and she knew that his body needed more sustenance than the sips of water she had been allowing. Thankfully, she was fairly certain he was not bleeding on the inside; he had no bruising low on his belly or on his sides and he had not thrown up or passed any blood. He had also been out of sorts recently. While that was a promising sign that he was healing, it was also wearing on Afton's patience, and she hoped that a good meal would help lift his spirits.

She checked on the broth that had been simmering on the hearth since morning. Edwina had brought a precious cockerel culled from her flock, not as a favor but as payment for her child's delivery. Afton had plucked it and set it stewing, adding a few stalks of parsnip, a couple of carrots and an onion, the last of the previous year's harvest. The new root crops would be ready to pull soon. She had added that to the lengthy list of tasks she kept in her head. The soup was now ready and smelled heavenly. Despite her mother's fond teasing, Afton had become a decent cook in the years since first left home. Her stomach growled longingly but she decided to care for Guy before eating her own meal. She poured some of the broth into a bowl and diluted it with warm water.

He was awake when she came to kneel beside him. "We really must think about moving you to the bed soon," she said. "It will be much easier for me to care for you there." He grunted noncommittally. "I've brought you something to eat. Let me help you." She cradled his head in her hand and lifted it so that he could drink from the bowl she was holding. A few drops spilled, running down his chest and he swore viciously.

Afton glared at him. "Surely, there is no call for such language! 'Tis but a few drops and it is not even hot."

"I mislike being helpless," he said, through his teeth.

"That will soon be mended. Every day now, you will get stronger," she replied firmly. "You are alive. That is all that matters right now."

"Thanks to you," he growled sarcastically.

Afton stared at him, astonished. She had heard enough of his fevered ramblings to know that Guy's past continued to torment him. But she had been sure that his persistent wish for death would recede together with the pain and fever. That with healing, he would make peace with himself. "Well, I call that ungrateful," she huffed to cover her discomfort.

"Ungrateful? I cannot move, I am reduced to being spoon-fed like a babe in arms, I cannot even use the privy with any privacy without you…inspecting my output, and you prattle about gratitude?" He was truly angry, jaw set, blue-grey eyes sparking, the nostrils of his aquiline nose flaring with each exhalation.

Her patience snapped. "Yes, ungrateful," she repeated. "I dragged you here _by myself. _I have cared for you with little sleep, little food, and no help for a sennight. I have endured your lewd commentary on my person and your improper advances. All to save your sorry skin. Because that is_ what I do_. Your reasons for wishing for death are of no concern to me, nor would they have changed a single thing I've done." She put the bowl of broth on the floor and rose, stalking away. She glanced over her shoulder, "Feed yourself, then, and see how you manage." Snatching up her basket, she then slammed the back door behind her.

###

Guy stared after her, amazed that the little healer, whom in the privacy of his mind he regarded as almost dovelike in her gentleness, could show so much fire. He felt bad for having been so churlish. Afton was right. She had only done what she would have for anyone; she had not saved him merely to be perverse. That he was alive was his own misfortune, not a deliberate wish of hers to cause him further pain.

Parts of her diatribe puzzled him, though. He supposed he was guilty of what she might consider lewd commentary. After all, he had seen her naked and had seen fit to comment rather freely. But improper advances? He had no idea what she referred to. The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. Generally, when he made an advance, improper or otherwise, it was as memorable to him as to its recipient. Then he remembered the livid bruises on her neck and it sobered him. In those peaceful moments when Afton would sit by his side, chatting warmly about inconsequential things or stroking his hair when she thought he was asleep, he would catch sight of them and it would make him want to run away from her, unable to bear the visible reminder of his irredeemably violent nature. He was glad the bruises were nearly gone, but Guy could not change who he was.

Guy attempted to raise his head unaided. Perhaps, he could sit up and show her that he was capable of seeing to at least some of his own needs. He tried, but his muscles were too weak and the wounds agonizingly painful. After a long moment, he rolled onto his right side. From there, he propped himself up on his right arm and took up the bowl in his left hand. Awkwardly, he drank it all, grateful that she was not there to watch. The simple effort of taking sustenance was totally exhausting. He subsided back onto the pallet, sheened with fine sweat and panting.

He ground his teeth in frustration, finally realizing that he was, indeed, going to be at her mercy for many more days if not weeks. Leisure, enforced or otherwise, had never been appealing to Guy. He considered himself a man of action. In truth, he had never been so satisfied with his life as during those last weeks with Robin and his gang; riding, running, even climbing trees, fighting for something just and good for a change. Before that…his mind shied away from the violent memories, choosing instead to linger on the few moments of peace his life had held. _Before._ Long gallops on his horse, alone and away from the castle intrigues; practice at arms with his men, swinging his sword until exhaustion led to dreamless sleep; walking his…Robin's…estates, calculating what the rich land could be coaxed to yield.

He supposed the remnants of the gang must remain somewhere in Sherwood. He hoped that at least his half-brother, Archer, had escaped. He had no such hope for Robin. Still, had not he himself survived at the hands of a competent healer? Perhaps Robin had, through some miracle, had the same deliverance.

That thought brought him again to Afton. He knew he had wronged her. And he had no way to make it up to her, not in his broken state when he was useless as a protector or even helper. Except, perhaps, he could be kind to her instead of treating her with contempt and resentment. But he doubted his ability to do even that, given what he knew of his own nature. _"You are a good man, Guy."_ Marian's voice whispered in his memory. But in his heart and mind, he knew he was not, could never be. It was far too late for that.

But maybe, just maybe, he could pretend. For Afton's sake.


	7. Chapter 7

The next few days passed quietly. Afton silently went about her work, tending to him only as much as was required and no more. She did not speak to him, restricting herself to giving instructions about food and medicine. She no longer sat beside him simply to offer the comfort of her presence and only came near him to dose him, feed him or change his bandages. Unexpectedly, he missed her gentle care but knew it was no more than he deserved. _Better we should be merely healer and patient._ There was less danger for her that way. He contented himself with being as complaisant as he could, keeping both his dark thoughts and his unwarranted attraction to her to himself.

Then, on the eighth day after she had discovered him on the road, when Guy had nearly convinced himself that they would be able to maintain these distant relations, Afton made a slyly provocative announcement. "I have decided that since you saw fit to compromise my modesty, now I shall have my revenge. You, sir, are going to have a bath today. Then, I shall move you to my bed which will be easier for me and much more comfortable for you."

"Where will _you_ sleep?" Guy inquired.

"On the floor, before the fire. It will not be the first time I have done so, to take care of a patient," she answered calmly, busying herself with gathering soap and linen towels.

"Surely there is room for two in your bed?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. What was it about this woman that provoked him so?

Afton's cheeks turned a faint pink, but she merely raised a golden-brown eyebrow and said, "Surely there is, for the right two people. But I assure you those two people are not you and I." She turned her back for a moment to fill a basin with hot water and Guy allowed himself the smile he'd been suppressing. He had to admit that he found her unwavering serenity as attractive as it was unusual. She did not stammer or simper or shy away as so many women would do in the face of such blatant raillery. The most he'd ever gotten out of her was a scarlet blush. Verbally, she gave as good as she got and that pleased him. He had had a lifetime's worth of people holding their tongues for fear of his anger.

She brought the basin to his side and set it down. She had removed his boots the first night, but now, she began untying his trousers which laced along the sides from ankle to hip. Once finished, she declined to loosen the waist lacings. "I think you can manage that much yourself." He bit down on a smirk and complied, attempting to look properly embarrassed. In truth, he found the whole situation vastly amusing. Once the various laces were untied, the trousers came off easily leaving him in his braies. "Those, you will leave on," she said firmly. Guy had to restrain himself from teasing her with an objection.

Using a soft linen square and soap that smelled of wood and herbs, she painstakingly washed every inch of his body that remained uncovered. Which was just as well since the soft, warm strokes of the wet cloth on his skin already threatened to rouse him beyond his control. Then, carefully if a little awkwardly, she washed and rinsed his hair. She dried him briskly with another towel and then checked the wound on his belly.

"It is healing well. I should be able to remove the stitching in another two or three days. Can you roll onto your side?" She inspected the wound on his back. "This one as well." She sounded very pleased with herself.

"So I will be able to leave, then?" Guy asked.

Afton laughed a merry, silvery giggle. "Do you think that you can take a sword to the belly and walk off a fortnight later? I hardly think so. You will have to remain here for at least three times that before it will be safe for you to do any but the easiest of tasks. Otherwise you could do yourself serious damage."

"And? What if I should not care?" he said, forgetting his vow to be kind.

"What you do _after_ you leave here is not my concern. But while you are in my home, under my care, you will not endanger yourself. Do you understand me?" she demanded angrily.

"How will you stop me?" he asked, voice silky but threatening. They glared at one another for a long moment, then he waved his comment away. "Never mind me. I am merely being impatient. The inactivity is wearing on me, I'm afraid."

She frowned suspiciously, eyebrows drawing together over narrowed eyes. "Are you fevered? That sounded suspiciously like an apology." She tried to feel his forehead but he intercepted her hand and held it in his.

"Perhaps it was. I've been…difficult. I have blamed you for things that are not your fault. I am…sorry." It had been a long time since those words had passed his lips. They came more easily than he thought they would. He squeezed her delicate hand before reluctantly letting it slip from his grip, not noticing that she had likewise been slow to disengage. "Now, then. You said something about a bed?"

Afton rose, the puzzled expression still on her face. "Yes, of course. Would you like to sit up for a while, while I change the bedding?" He nodded eagerly. It would be a refreshing change of perspective from being flat on his back. She positioned a chair near his pallet, but it still took both of their combined efforts to maneuver him first a to a sitting then to a standing position. He was amused to discover that he had been right about her height; he towered over her by nearly a foot. After painstakingly helping him to his feet, she fit her shoulder neatly beneath his arm and supported his tentative steps towards the chair. Once more, he appreciated her strength. He was extremely weak and unsteady on his feet and her solid support kept him standing until he was able to collapse, exhausted, onto the chair.

He watched while she stripped the linens from the bed and remade it. She then took up a comb from a table beside the bed and came to stand behind him. "Your hair is all tangled," she said, as if apologizing. She used the comb and her fingers to coax the snarls from his damp hair. "Black as a crow's wing," she murmured, smoothing it back from his forehead. He found himself relaxing beneath her touch, aware that he had missed it since their argument a few days before. His neck muscles loosened and his head drifted back to rest on her soft stomach. He could feel her breathing, becoming heavier and more rapid the longer he stayed in such intimate contact with her.

He knew he should stop, pull away from her and reestablish the barriers he had built to keep her safe from him and to spare himself added heartbreak. But he simply could not resist the opportunity to try something he had been longing to do since he first saw her with her hair unbound. He reached up with his good arm and took the comb from her nerveless fingers. "Come here." She stepped back and he sensed rather than saw her indecision. "Let me return the favor."

"I don't…that's not necessary." Her voice was higher than normal, ending on almost a squeak.

"Afton, come here." He lowered his voice to a rough whisper.

Afton circled the chair warily and sank to the floor in front of him, her back between his knees. He could feel her heat, stealing along his skin and warming him more than any fire. He plucked the wooden pins from the knot at her neck and her hair spilled down over his lap in a golden-brown fall. For a quiet spell, he pulled the comb through her hair in long strokes, smoothing each section with his palm as he went. Her hair was silky soft under his hands as he carefully rebraided it and coiled it atop her head, fastening it with the pins before resting his fingertips at the base of her neck.

She was very still, yet he could feel her trembling so slightly it was almost a vibration. Finally, she spoke. "Thank you. It has been…a very long time since someone did that for me." From the husky tone of her voice, he suspected he knew who that someone was.

His fingers brushed her cheek, stroking it right next to her ear, then down the curve of her neck where he had choked her just a week before. "You're welcome. It is no more than you deserve after my treatment of you." He ran his thumb over one of the faint yellow smudges that were all that was left of the bruises. She shivered hard and scrambled to her feet, nervously smoothing down her skirts.

"It is no matter. You were…not yourself. Come, now. You've been up long enough. Let's get you into bed where you can rest."

Much later that night, Guy lay awake staring at the patterns of the firelight on the ceiling. He could not rest for being torn between affection for her and anger with himself for not hiding it.


	8. Chapter 8

He continued wrestling with himself for the next several days, veering sharply between blissful comfort and acute awkwardness in her presence, sometimes within moments. His uncharacteristic indecisiveness was driving him mad and clearly confusing Afton who began spending more and more time away from the cottage.

Then, one evening, Afton let herself into the cottage well after dark, closing the door with a soft bump behind her. She put her basket on the table and sank down into one of the chairs with her head in her hands. Her slender shoulders sagged with exhaustion and dejection. Guy had seen her in many moods during the past fortnight and had become quite good at divining those moods, but this time it took little effort. He suspected that something—or someone—had hurt her.

"Where have you been?" he asked, struggling to rise from the bed. "You've been gone for hours!"

"Don't snap at me," she replied sharply, not looking at him, misreading his concern for displeasure. "You should not have had need of me while I was gone. And do lie down. I am far too tired to stitch you back up again." She had removed the stitching that morning with the stern warning that he should be very careful not to reopen the wounds with too much exertion. He had tried to protest, saying that he disliked being useless and wishing to himself that he could find a way of helping her with her burden of chores, but Afton had remained adamant.

"Anything might have happened to you. It is not safe for you to travel who knows where at this hour of the night." He hated how the harsh, domineering tone rang unbidden in his voice. She would not know that it came from honest worry.

Afton gave a short, ugly laugh. "Do you own me now? Am I to be your own personal physician at your beck and call?" She rose and began pacing restlessly around the cottage. "I have travelled the area near this village for years before you came and I'll keep doing it well after you're gone." He had never heard such a chill note in her voice.

"What happened?" he asked more softly. "Please, Afton. I can see that something is very wrong."

She finally looked at him and he saw that her eyes were red, but tearless. Wordlessly, he stretched out his hand to her, willing her to come to him, confide in him. Since the night he had brushed her hair, he had felt more and more drawn to her. She was a strange mixture of strength and softness, confidence and shyness. He worried about her lonely, precarious existence as a healer—possibly even a suspected witch—and felt increasingly compelled to protect her. It was a daily frustration that he was physically incapable of doing so.

She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, ignoring his outstretched hand. "This afternoon, I was called to attend a village woman, Catherine, in childbed," she said, tonelessly. "The labor was quick but the child was stillborn, the cord wrapped thrice around her neck."

He took her hand, struggling to find words that would comfort her. What did he know of women's matters like birth? "That is sad indeed. But surely, these things happen?"

"They do not happen to _me_," she snapped. She dragged her sleeve across her still-dry eyes roughly.

"To you? I would think it would be more of a tragedy for the parents." He caressed the back of her hand with his thumb. "Even so, you seem more angered than sorrowful. Why is that?"

"She should not have died. I should have been able to save her," Afton cried, snatching her hand from his grasp.

"So now you are God, with power over life and death?" he asked quietly. "Or perhaps I should say Goddess, since that is who you seem to worship more faithfully." He could not quite keep the scorn from his voice.

"What can you know of my faith?" Afton spat. "And don't you dare preach to me of your contemptible God, in whose eyes women are chattel at best, evil and sinful at worst!" She was shaking with anger. "What could he possibly care about the life or death of a girl child? Or her mother? No, Guy. I cannot believe it was the will of God, or of the Goddess either. It was _my_ fault. There were things I should have done, medicines, methods I could have used to save her. But…it all happened so quickly. She was blue. I blew into her mouth, over and over and over but she would not breathe!"

The look in her eyes was perilously close to madness. Guy had seen it before. In the mirror, on his own face. "Afton, listen to yourself. You're not making sense." He gritted his teeth and pulled himself to a sitting position, placing his hands on her shoulders. "You think there is more you should have done. But you said it happened quickly. You said you tried to breathe life into her. What else could you have done in that time? Think." He watched as her eyes unfocused, drifting back over the events of the day, and saw her expression change from anger to sorrow. "You did all you could."

"How do you know that?" she asked, voice breaking. "How can you be so sure?"

"You forget, I have _seen_ you do all could to save a patient. Against all logic or reason and totally in spite of myself, you saved _me_." He collapsed back against the pillows, worn out from mere moments of holding himself upright.

Afton had grown used to being strong, to being alone. But now that she had been warmed by an unexpected ray of kindness, she wanted to lose herself in it, wanted to be comforted. She held out a hand, looking shy as any maiden. "Guy? Would you…may I…?"

He put his hands lightly on her shoulder. "Come here." She lay down beside him, curling tightly against his side. He drew her gently into his arms and held her while she finally wept.


	9. Chapter 9

The autumn ripened as Guy's wounds slowly healed and he began, bit by agonizing bit, to regain his strength. The day when Afton helped him walk outside and sit on a bench while she picked the last of the apples was a victory for them both. After that, she allowed him to sit outside, wrapped in a blanket, for a short time every day that the weather was fine; mostly in the evenings when visitors were unlikely. She had not told anyone but Edwina about him, apprehensive of what the villagers' reactions would be. Now, after weeks had passed, her reputation depended on keeping his presence a secret.

Which was as well. Since the night Guy had held her while she cried over the death of Catherine's babe, there was an intimacy between them which would surely be difficult to explain to strangers. Conversation came easier and they talked about many things. Afton told him about her mother and her training as a healer. Guy told Afton more about his early life before his father left on the Crusades.

Afton even began to explain some of the simpler traditions and rituals of her faith, hoping that he would begin to understand why she believed as she did. But in doing so, she discovered that he was both sincerely devout and convinced that he was beyond redemption though he would never say why. He was also convinced that her pagan beliefs damned her just as surely as he believed himself to be. It frustrated her so much that she eventually stopped talking about matters of faith with him at all.

Eventually, Guy became strong enough to help her with small tasks around the farm and cottage. She found she that she had to watch him carefully and restrict him to less taxing tasks because he pushed himself to the point where she feared that he would injure himself again. At such times, he would mock-growl at her, accusing her of cosseting him like a babe.

Afton was surprised at the ease with which he did most of the work. From what little he had told her, she knew that he must be of noble birth yet he did not scruple to get his hands dirty helping pick the root crops, turning over the kitchen garden and fetching water and firewood. She asked him about it one day. He leaned on the hoe he was using to spade the garden and gave her the half-smile that made her heart catch every time she saw it.

"Why should I not? It is honest work."

"It is, but many of your station would not be comfortable doing it," she replied from where she sat on the bench, twisting herbs into bundles for drying.

"My station?" he asked sharply. "What do you mean?"

"You told me once that as a boy you were trained to manage a large estate. I assumed that meant you were a noble. Or was your father a steward?" she asked, curious.

He sighed heavily and went back to digging. "What I was or what my father was has no bearing on the present. My lands were lost long ago and I have no hope of getting them back now or ever." He gave her a sly glance. "And my prospects for marriage are dismal, if that's what you were wondering."

Her cheeks had turned a brighter pink than exposure to the autumn sun could account for. "I had not thought of it," she replied primly. "I have no intention of marrying again." _And even if I did, it is obvious you are far above me, no matter what you might say. It would be folly to aim so high._ And yet, watching him with hoe in hand like a simple farmer, shirtless and tinged golden by the autumn sun, the thought made her feel just a little wistful.

Then, one morning in late October, she woke him, sitting on the bed beside him with her hands held behind her back. "I have a surprise for you." Eyes sparkling, she held out two shirts, one black and one dark red. "I repaired your shirt and made you another one. I hope it fits. I am going to sow the winter barley today and I thought you might like to come along and help. But you will draw a crowd of gawkers if you walk around my fields half-naked!" she giggled.

"I cannot imagine why you don't wish me to," he teased back.

"I _would_ prefer to keep your presence here quiet." she said, more soberly.

"Far be it from me to do anything to compromise your reputation, mistress," he said, but his eyes sent a message that was quite the opposite.

To her delight, Guy chose to wear the dark red linen shirt. It suited him exactly as she had thought it would, setting off his black hair and silver-blue eyes. Even though it made her feel like a silly goose, she had become so aware of everything about him that she had noticed that his eyes changed color from the lightest gray to the darkest blue depending on his mood, the weather, or the lighting. She had wondered if they would change with what colors he wore and was enchanted to discover that the deep red made them look a bright, piercing blue. _A woman could drown in those eyes_. She snorted softly, admonishing herself once more for being foolish.

They went, side by side, towards the field behind the orchard. As they walked, Afton thrilled at the easy grace of Guy's long strides. He was nearly recovered. She sobered, realizing that he was recovered enough to leave if he chose to. She decided that she would have to tell him so on the morrow. After all, there was nothing to keep him with her, only the foolish longings of her heart.

They reached the field shortly. The spring barley had been harvested and Christopher, Edwina's husband, had organized the plowing among some of the village men. It was an arrangement that had worked well for the four years since Edward's death in exchange for Afton's services in delivering their wives and caring for those who had illnesses and accidents.

Before dividing the seed she carried into two baskets, Afton murmured a blessing over it. She handed Guy his share and noticed that he was scowling. "I am sorry you disapprove, Guy. You're not the first and you won't be the last. But my faith is as important to me as yours is to you."

"Your faith is not valid, Afton. Your goddess does not exist. It is heresy to claim otherwise," he replied stubbornly.

"You only say that because you refuse to feel Her," Afton replied, refusing to rise to the bait. "Her power is everywhere. Today is Samhain, the close of the year. Everything around us is dead, yet come spring it will be reborn, just as the Christ rose from the dead. What we do today is as sacred a ritual in its own way as the Eucharist." She took a handful of seed and sprinkled it along one of the dark furrows in the earth. Reluctantly, he mimicked her action.

After they had sowed one row and reached the edge of the orchard, she set down her basket and approached him, uncertain how to express what was on her mind and in her heart. She stood before him and placed her palms flat on his chest. "If you choose, you can be reborn as well, Guy. Your faith teaches that, as mine does." Her eyes pleaded for understanding "The veil between worlds will be thin tonight and the ghosts of the past will be near. Will you make your peace with them?" She wound her hands around his neck and stood on the tips of her toes. "I will help you, if you wish it." She pulled his head down and placed a soft kiss on his lips. She tried to tell herself that she meant it to be simple, friendly and sweet. But in her heart she knew she was really asking for more. _If he is to leave soon, would it be wrong to wish for just one night with him?_

He stood still as stone until finally, his hands drifted up to grasp her shoulders and put some distance between them. "Afton, don't," he said roughly. "You don't know what you're playing with." Reluctantly, she stepped back and resumed her work, as did he.

They were both so lost in thought that they did not notice the lone figure standing half-hidden by the orchard trees. They did not see the hand making the sign of the cross. They didn't hear the soft scuttle of footsteps scurrying away towards the village.

Even though they sowed the rest of the field in silence, not entirely in accord with each other, Afton became increasingly attuned both to the earth beneath her feet and to the man beside her. She felt alive and reckless. Part of her wanted to show Guy just what magic the Goddess had at her command, wanted to draw him down and bless the fruits of the earth with their coupling, priestess to his priest as in the elder days. The closer the day drew to sunset, the more she vibrated with power and energy. By the time they were done sowing the grain, she had resolved that if she was never going to see him again, she would do whatever it took to have him in her bed just once, reputation and propriety be damned.

They walked back to the cottage in wary silence, careful to avoid touching. The sun was setting and the interior of the cottage was dim when they entered. Instead of lighting the lamps, Afton lit three precious beeswax candles and placed them on the mantle. "Maiden, mother and crone, do you see? Not so different from the Holy Trinity. My mother used to say that the Christian God and the Goddess are but different sides of the same divine power. A divine power that would forgive you, if you would ask."

She drew near him once more and slid her hands around his waist, touching him with a wantonness she had never dared show before. Laying her head on his chest, she could feel his breathing, rapid and shallow. For a long moment he stood there as before, rigid and unyielding in her embrace. Then, in an explosion of movement, his arms were around her, his hands tangled in her hair. His lips came down hard on hers and his tongue was hot in her mouth. She mewled a tiny cry and pressed her body against his, hands tracing the lean muscles of his back and pulling him closer. His lips traced a fiery path down her neck and stopped to suckle at the spot between her collar bones. She threw her head back and bared her neck to him, utterly vulnerable to whatever he might choose to do to her.

"Oh, Guy," she murmured. "I love you so."


	10. Chapter 10

"Oh, Guy," Afton murmured. "I love you so."

Guy froze, tearing his lips away from Afton's skin. "No. Do not say that." He suddenly released her and she stumbled back, towards the table. "I am not worthy of that, Afton."

"So you say. But you have never given me a reason to doubt you," she replied. Her eyes were fever-bright and her lips were swollen from his kisses. She looked so beautiful that he wanted to take her right there on the kitchen table, but he would not. Could not. She could not be allowed to persist in her delusions that he was a good man. Better she know now than later, when her heart would be broken even more painfully.

He advanced on her, a sneer on his face, and grabbed her arm, fingers digging into the flesh hard enough to bruise her. "Have I not? Your devotion is touching, but I can assure you I am undeserving of it. You have no idea of the things I've done, Afton, of the kind of man I really am."

She stood her ground, challenging him with her eyes. "Is this about your Marian? You begged her forgiveness while you were fevered. Surely you are not the first man to break a woman's heart."

"Break her heart?" Guy grabbed her other arm and shook her. "I did not break her heart. I _killed_ her." He continued in a raspy voice, his breath catching. "She told me…she loved another. I flew into a—a fit of rage. I lunged at her…sword in hand. She was the woman I loved…and I killed her. You cannot understand what kind of…monstrous creature that makes me. You cannot know…how that feels." He wanted to look away from her, but waited dejectedly for horror and contempt to blaze in her eyes. It never came. Instead, an expression of deep sorrow darkened her face.

"Can't I?" Afton's voice was a mere whisper. "Believe me, I do. Let me tell you how it was…"

"A year to the day from our wedding day…the Friar and some men from the village…they brought Edward to me in the evening. He had been in the forest…hunting, they said. He knew I didn't want him getting into danger…but he did it anyway. Food was scarce that winter and I…suspect he thought he had something to prove. He tracked a wild boar by himself and must have…only wounded it with his first shot. It…charged him and gored him…here," she wrenched one of her wrists from Guy's grasp and touched his torso about six inches below his scar. "He was bleeding badly…screaming from the pain. The Friar started to give him the Last Rites and I…broke down. I shouted at them to let me treat him…heal him. They…held me back and would not let me go to him…until the Friar was done. By then they…they kept saying he could not possibly…live…and I believed them. Yet he continued…to scream and…writhe in pain. My Edward, my love…there was nothing, nothing at all I could do." She paused to catch her breath and glanced at Guy. He was standing still, his eyes riveted to her face.

"I cried. Called for my mother…but she was gone. In the ground six months by then. To this day I know that had she been there, she would have known what to do. I couldn't bear it. I had to help him somehow. I went to my closet, just there," she pointed to the small shed attached to the cottage, "and I mixed a draught to make him sleep. I knew…the way he was bleeding…he would never wake from it. I came back…and held his head in my lap, told him that I loved him…over and over. Then I gave him the draught and…and held him while…he…died in my arms." She fell silent, choking down tears.

"It wasn't until later that I realized…I could have saved him…if I had tried. I was too young…too scared…too inexperienced to stand up to them. Especially the Friar," her voice grew low and contemptuous. "If I had just thrown them all out and trusted myself to treat him, he would still be alive. I have always believed that, but I was never completely sure of it until I had healed you. Your wound was so similar and yet here you stand."

"You say I cannot understand what it's like to kill the one you love. I do, Guy. I have lived with that knowledge for four years and I will live with it for the rest of my life. The only way I can keep living with it is to make sure that no one under my care dies without receiving every possible treatment I can think of, ever again." She stepped towards Guy, fingertips tracing the outline of the scar on his belly. "But…" tears spilled over tracing sparkling candlelit paths down her cheeks, "…if the pain of what you've done is something you really cannot live with, if you're so hell-bent on seeking the damnation you believe is waiting for you, I'll mix you a draught and I will hold _you_ while you die in my arms. Is that what you wish?"

The silence following her question was so deep and long she thought it might never end. But after what seemed like an eternity, Guy released his grip on her wrist and brought her palm to his lips, pressing it a gentle kiss against it. "Stubborn, willful, foolish woman. That you would take such a thing upon yourself to spare me the pain of my deeds…" his voice was full of wonder. "I would never ask that of you, even if I still wished for death. But I do not. What I want is to be free of this pain, if only for a little while. You offered to help me, but perhaps…perhaps we can help each other forget, just for tonight."


	11. Chapter 11

"Is this what you wish, Afton?" Guy asked, holding her hand loosely. The instant she started to pull away, he would let her go; he was fully prepared for her to do so. "How could you want to be with me now, knowing what I did?"

But she did not pull away. "The man who could do such a thing…must have been out of his mind. But that is not the man _I_ know," she murmured. She took a tentative step forward and fitted her body against his. "I have wished for this more than you can imagine. I think I have wanted you ever since you first kissed me all those weeks ago."

"I kissed you before today?" he asked, perplexed. His mind traveled back over the last six sennights, but he was sure he would remember something like that. Then again, he was mightily distracted by the sweet armful he held.

"When you were fevered. I…think you thought I was _her_." He heard the slight resentment in her voice.

"Ah, I see." He placed a finger under her chin and tipped her head up so that their eyes met. "I promise I will not make the same mistake this time." He bent and kissed her until he could feel her heart pounding against his chest. Then he swept her off her feet into his arms, carrying her towards the bed.

"Guy!" she protested. "Your wounds! You will do yourself damage."

"Hush. They are healed and you know it. You are not my physician tonight, Afton." He set her on her feet beside the bed and kissed her again, teasing her lips open with the tip of his tongue. Tasting her. Learning her. His hands rested on the laces of her kirtle. "Are you sure?" he whispered against her lips.

"Yes," she breathed. Her eyes were wide and her pupils dilated in the flickering light. Unhurriedly, he unlaced her kirtle and slipped it off over her shoulders leaving her in her linen shift. His lips glided along the curve of her jaw and down the side of her neck, nipping lightly. He was rewarded with a light gasp of pleasure and the feel of her hands twining in his hair, pulling him closer still. His fingers worked on the knotted drawstring at the neck of her shift, finally loosening it so that it slipped down and bared one of her creamy shoulders to his seeking lips.

Resting his hands on her hips, he sat down on the edge of the bed and guided her to stand between his knees. For a moment, he simply rested his head against her breast feeling her heat seep through the cool linen of her shift beneath his cheek. Then he sat back and, with a gentle tug, pulled her shift down so that it slid completely down her body and onto the floor leaving her naked under his admiring gaze.

"You are so very beautiful." His voice was deep with desire.

"Not so," she answered, blushing. "I am at peace with being plain. You needn't lie to make me feel better about it."

"It is no lie, woman. Are you truly unaware how lovely you are?" He moved his hands up her sides, stroking the undersides of her breasts with his thumbs.

"Edward…used to say so," she breathed. "But that is the sort of thing a husband is duty bound to say…is it not?"

"He was as truthful as he was lucky." Guy pulled her closer, nuzzling and licking at the cleft between her breasts. She tasted faintly of salt, herbs and something else, undefinably _her_. He cupped her breasts, each nestling into his palms as though they were made exactly to fit there, and guided one rosy nipple into his mouth. He was already well aroused, but her drawn out exhalation of pleasure made him stiffen even more. He suckled and licked until it tightened to a hard nubbin, then moved his lips to encircle the other, then back again and again until she writhed and gasped for breath.

"Ah, Guy…you torment me," she cried softly. "Please…"

"What is it you wish, sweet Afton?" he asked wickedly, though he was sure he knew. Without waiting for an answer, he drew his hand down her stomach, letting it come to rest just above the thatch of golden brown curls at the meeting point of her legs. "This, perhaps?" He slid his hand between her thighs. She was wet, liquid honey hot against the finger he slid along her cleft.

"Yes…" The simple syllable was infused with breathless desire.

"Or this?" He ran his finger lightly over the spot he knew would please her most and thrilled to hear her smothered scream. "Why do you hold back, lovely one? There is no one to hear you but me." He stroked her harder, supporting her firmly with his arm around her waist. When she could no longer stand, her knees buckling beneath her, he drew her across his lap never breaking the rhythm of his caresses. Her cries became louder and took on a cadence of unrestrained passion until at last she uttered a final hoarse scream and collapsed bonelessly against him, shuddering.

He waited until she opened her eyes and captured them with his own, drawing her attention to the finger he now put to his lips. He sucked at it slowly, tasting her. "So very sweet." He cradled her once more in his arms and shifted her so that she lay on the bed, silent and breathing hard. He took off his boots, then rose and pulled his shirt over his head. His trousers fell to the floor next, followed by his braies until finally he was as naked as she.

He stood still for a moment, unable to resist preening under her hungry gaze. Her eyes were nearly black and huge in her face as she stretched out her arms, beckoning to him. He climbed into the bed and lay atop her, supporting his weight on his elbows and asked again, "Are you very sure, sweet girl?"

"Yes, Guy. I'm sure." She startled him with a bold hand gripping him, guiding him to rest at her entrance. He lowered his head and kissed her, sliding into her silken depths as he did so. Trying to be gentle, he moved slowly within her but she would have none of it. She wrapped her legs around him, urging him on and his determination to stay in control was wholly undone. He sank into her, arm wound around her hips pulling her to meet his strokes. His lips feasted on hers and his tongue twined with hers in a dance older than time. She arched her back, taking him even more deeply, urging him with her voice and body to harder and harder strokes.

Wordlessly, he grasped her hips and rolled so that he was underneath her and she was impaled upon him. He held her there, motionless, with one hand, while with the other he pulled the pins from her hair and let it cascade over his thighs. He released her to move as she would and she rode him wantonly until he became the one who could not breathe. He sat up and wrapped his arms around her, suckling hard on her neck and whispering encouragement in her ear.

"Yes, my sweet Afton. My lovely one. Just like that." He felt himself quickly climbing towards the point of no return and flipped her once more to her back, driving into her, making her scream his name until she had no voice left. He felt her shiver and contract around him and finally, gloriously, let himself release into her again and again, until he collapsed atop her drained and wracked with shivers of ecstasy.

After a breathless moment, he rolled over onto his side taking her with him so that they faced each other. She nestled against his chest and sighed, eyelashes drifting down, down to brush her cheeks until finally, she slept. He held her long into the night, simply listening to her soft breathing.

Afton awoke in the quiet hour before dawn to the feel of Guy's lips on her throat. Wordlessly, she reached out to him, sliding her palms over his shoulders and back, learning the feel of him as she had not had a chance to in the heat of the previous night's passion. She kissed his neck, his shoulders, the angry scar on his belly. There was no part of him she did not want to touch, to taste, to learn and to remember.

"It might be wrong, but I can't help it," she whispered. "I do love you."

He made no reply, but gathered her into his arms and rolled her onto her back, parting her legs and slipping inside her once more. He loved her slowly and tenderly until they both sighed in a twin climax made no less powerful by the sweetness of their lovemaking. Afterwards, Afton felt so safe and cherished that she easily slipped back into slumber. She did not feel Guy kiss her brow. She did not hear him slip from the bed, dress and fetch his armor from under the bed where she had laid it away. She did not see him carry his boots in his hand and steal, soft-footed, out the door.

When Afton woke and realized that he was gone, she gave in to despair and wept bitter, lonely tears. She crushed the pillow where he had lain to her face, wanting to imprint the scent of him onto her memory. Because she knew that his tenderness had not meant, "I love you."

It had meant "goodbye."


End file.
